During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Eighth Route Army, while organizing a war against the Japanese Kou, also had to guard against Chiang Kai-shek's calculations and strikes.
Although Chiang Kai-shek was the chairman of the Kuomintang, his heart and eyes were not very big, and at the critical juncture of the all-people resistance against Japan, he had the leisure to keep an eye on the development of the Communist Party at all times, and when he saw that our party was constantly growing among the peasant masses, he could not help but give us means and stumbling blocks.
Therefore, in 1941, he began to send troops to surround the revolutionary base area of northern Shaanxi, strictly control the entry of materials into northern Shaanxi, hoping to strangle the strength of our party through economic siege and production blockade, but most of the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army were from poor peasant families, and the land was his own home.
In order to resist the siege of the Nationalist army, our army organized a production self-help campaign, and the soldiers practiced their combat skills while walking into the fields with their fellow villagers and working hard.
This is true of the soldiers, and it is also true of the generals. Huang Yongsheng, who later became the founding general, personally specialized in pig breeding secrets and improved the food of the troops, and later he had a sudden idea to use his pigs and the vegetables grown by the soldiers to open a restaurant, which could not only drive the economic development of northern Shaanxi, but also improve the living standards of the local people. But when it opened, Huang Yongsheng's colleague Chen Geng brought people to eat the Overlord meal, but bluntly said: If you don't want money, you want to die.
Produce self-help campaigns
Since 1941, the first is that the Japanese army has intensified its offensive against northern Shaanxi, and at the same time began a frenzied sweep of the countryside near northern Shaanxi, committing a series of crimes, such as looting property, robbing grain and livestock, and destroying farmland, which has greatly damaged the production and life of the people in northern Shaanxi and the harvest of crops has been declining.
Secondly, the Kuomintang also besieged northern Shaanxi, the reason was that Chiang Kai-shek first received international recognition from Britain and the United States, and received the support of his combat materials, but his resistance to the Japanese army gradually entered a passive period, and at the same time, the Communist Eighth Route Army gained great support among the peasant masses in northern Shaanxi and slowly developed and grew, Chiang Kai-shek was afraid that the growth of the Communist Party attracted the attention of Britain and the United States, and finally made Britain and the United States turn to support the Communist Party.
He felt that it was still necessary to suppress the Communist Party, but during the period of the all-people resistance against Japan, he certainly could not directly launch encirclement and suppression, so he sent hundreds of thousands of troops to surround northern Shaanxi regiments, hoping to strangle our party through economic blockade.
The blows and sieges of the Japanese army and the Nationalist army have brought great trouble to the material support of our army in northern Shaanxi, and without supply, the army cannot fight a war.
The CPC Central Committee has urgently formulated a set of specific policies for production and self-help: The principle of making efforts to produce and conserving resources throughout the ages, with agricultural production as the core and handicrafts, animal husbandry, industry, transportation, and commercial production as the supplements, give priority to ensuring the material supply within the base areas, and on this basis, revitalize the local economy and promote the normal operation of economic activities in northern Shaanxi. In terms of organizational form, the principle of balancing public and private interests and balancing military and civilian affairs is implemented.
The military and people in the base areas of northern Shaanxi shouted the slogan of "do it themselves, have enough food and clothing," worked hard in the fields, and actively coped with the material crisis in northern Shaanxi with the most optimistic and uplifting mental outlook.
Under the unified leadership of the central authorities, all units cooperate and help each other in different regions and fields, and put themselves into production in full swing; at the same time, production competitions, lectures on production knowledge, and rewards for production heroes are carried out within the army, and the enthusiasm of military and civilian production is promoted in various ways.
A great general engaged in breeding
General Huang Yongsheng, a veteran army leader within the Eighth Route Army, participated in the Tongchong Autumn Harvest Uprising launched in Tongcheng County, Hubei Province in 1927, and a month later followed Tongchong's rebel troops to participate in the Autumn Harvest Uprising in Xiangganbian, officially joined the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, went to Jinggangshan with the troops, and joined our Party in December of the same year.
Huang Yongsheng fought bravely and strategically, strategized, and led the team well, successively serving as a platoon commander, company commander, deputy regimental commander, and regimental commander of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army; after arriving in northern Shaanxi, he served as the commander of the Red Army division; during the War of Resistance Against Japan, he served as the deputy commander of the Third Army Sub-district of the Eighth Route Army.
However, such a commander who held an important position not only went to the fields with the officers and men to plant wheat with the officers and men after launching the production self-help campaign in northern Shaanxi, but also studied the pig raising technology himself.
Raising pigs seems easy, in fact, there are many doorways hidden inside, Huang Yongsheng has no experience in raising pigs for the first time, he bought three piglets from his hometown and put them in the pig pen, feeding pig grass every day, and as a result, the pig cubs got sick and died, Huang Yongsheng was sad.
But he did not plan to give up, first go to the hometown to ask about the experience of raising pigs, such as how to arrange the pig pen to clean, to prevent pigs from getting swine fever, to feed the pigs what pigs eat long meat fast, and how to control the pig's work and rest, how to breed and deliver pigs, how long is the pig's out of the pen, etc. He asked clearly one by one, and also took a small book to write it down, and then rearranged the pigsty, and then picked up a few piglets, and fed them with pig grass mixed with wheat bran.
This time the pig cubs grew very healthy and strong, and soon they would be able to get out of the pen, and on the day of the barn, the officers and men in the army had a hard time eating pork, and then Huang Yongsheng's pig raising business became bigger and bigger, the pig cubs increased from a few to a dozen, Huang Yongsheng's pig breeding business greatly improved the food in the base area, but he was not satisfied, he wanted to develop other industries through the breeding industry, and further promote the economic development of northern Shaanxi.
Through careful observation, he found that since the great blockade in northern Shaanxi, many hotels have closed their doors if they can't continue to operate, so he thinks it is better to open a restaurant, and the ingredients will be using his own pigs, loach, yellow eels and various vegetables raised by the soldiers.
When all was said and done, he really researched a few specialties using these ingredients, and soon, his restaurant opened and named it "Red Star Restaurant".
After the opening of the Red Star Restaurant, many officers and soldiers and ordinary people came here to eat, the business of the restaurant was very good, because it was opened by the Eighth Route Army, no one made trouble, but one day came to eat the Overlord meal, it turned out that this person was Huang Yongsheng's old friend, Chen Geng.
Chen Geng was also an excellent general of the Eighth Route Army, he was born in the General Gate, and later studied at the Whampoa Military Academy, and after graduation, he participated in the Northern Expedition and had rich combat experience. Chen Geng is humorous and funny, in front of the great people like to make some jokes, liven up the atmosphere, he heard that his old comrade-in-arms Huang Yongsheng opened a restaurant, he plans to take a group of people to take care of the business.
But after eating, when it was time to pay the bill, he smiled and said to the shopkeeper who came to collect the money: "Tell your boss to come, I know him, and you don't have to pay for dinner." At that time, Chen Geng was wearing civilian clothes, and Xiao Er did not know that they were the Eighth Route Army, and thought that they had encountered a troublemaker. As a result, after Huang Yongsheng came, Chen Geng said to him: "I don't want money, I want to die." Huang Yongsheng was also very atmospheric, directly saying that the veteran soldiers were free.
Successfully survived the Great Blockade
In the midst of the great blockade of the Kuomintang army, it was precisely the revolutionary optimism of countless soldiers of the Eighth Route Army who worked hard, studied production, and at the same time adhered to the spirit of making fun out of suffering, that they finally succeeded in the movement of self-help in production and smashed the Attempt of the Kuomintang side to achieve the elimination of the combat effectiveness of the base areas through economic siege.
Since 1941, the production self-help movement in northern Shaanxi has gradually achieved remarkable results, and great people have praised this as a miracle that has never been seen before. In 1940, after returning from the anti-Japanese front, Mr. Zhu put forward the Tuntian policy, in which the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army reclaimed the wasteland to keep their combat readiness needs, reducing the burden on the people and improving the living standards of the army.
Beginning in 1940, the 359th Brigade of the Eighth Route Army was transferred from northwestern Jin to the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia region, and the unit was later stationed in Nanniwan, holding a gun in one hand and a production tool in the other, engaged in the production movement, and soon achieved self-sufficiency.
In 1940, more than 90% of the army's military expenditure depended on the central government, and after one year of production, the self-sufficiency rate of funds reached 70%, and by the fourth year of production, basically all material expenses could be self-sufficient by land production.
The central authorities later made regulations requiring all major organs and departments of the armed forces to actively reclaim wasteland to the outside world, so that each soldier could cultivate an average of 17 mu of land, and at the same time, in terms of policy, it was necessary to open up and reduce expenditure, and to open source was to expand production, and to reduce expenditure on the one hand was to save resources, and on the other hand, to streamline the administration of the army and control expenditure.
brief summary:
General Huang Yongsheng, as a great general who led thousands of troops and horses, under the premise that the base areas in northern Shaanxi were besieged and the party Central Committee put forward the call for self-help in production, took the initiative to study the knowledge of raising pigs, took the lead in production, and achieved material self-sufficiency, and also tried to open a restaurant to promote local economic activities.